Rules of Engagement

Chapter Fourteen

The pains started at night. Brun woke up, to find herself knotted around her hardened belly. It eased, but she knew at once it was not a cramp from supper. It was . . . what she most feared. She lay back, stretching a little. She was just dozing off when another pain curled her forward again.

She had no watch, no clock. She had no way to tell how the pains quickened. She had to use the toilet suddenly. Levering herself out of bed, she went into the corridor. Down the length of it, she saw the glint from the door-guard’s eyes watching her. Damn him. She struggled toward the toilets, but another pain caught her, doubling her up against the wall. Through a haze of pain, she saw the guard stand up, move toward her. The pain eased; she leaned on the wall but went on. Into the toilet room . . . at least they had toilets, she thought muzzily. She was hardly a meter from it when fluid gushed down her legs, hot and shocking.

“You!” It was the warden; the guard must have wakened her. “Come on!” The woman grabbed her arm, pulled. Yelled at the others to wake up. Brun doubled up again; the woman tugged at her arm. But it hurt too much; she was too weak. She sagged to her knees, gasping. It was unfair that she couldn’t scream, unfair that this pain could not be met as it should be, with the protest it deserved.

Now the other women were around her, tugging and pushing, but she huddled there on her knees, unwilling to rise. Why should she? Suddenly the warden stuck something under her nose, an acrid smell that made her throw her head up to escape it. With a grin of triumph, the woman yanked on her arms again. With the others’ help, she got Brun up, and together they half-dragged, half-carried her down the corridor and into the birthing room. By then the pain had eased, and Brun clambered onto the birth-bed herself. She might as well.

To her surprise, the rest of the birthing went faster than the one she had watched. Weren’t first births supposed to be slower? She couldn’t remember; she couldn’t think. One pain after another flowed down her body, pushing, pushing . . . the other women wiped her face with damp cloths, stroked her arms. The warden alone scolded her, telling her to breathe or push, waiting with a folded towel for the baby that was—surely—just about to come.

And then it did—with a last wrenching pain, she felt the pressure ease suddenly; a thin cry rose from nowhere. The women all gasped together; the warden scowled.

“Too little. You have puny babies.”

But then another pain struck, and Brun curled into it.

“Ah—” The warden handed off the first baby to one of the other women. “Two babies! Good!”

The second was born crying lustily. The warden put them on Brun’s chest. “Give suck,” she said. Brun had no idea how, until the warden turned the babies and pressed Brun’s nipples into the little mouths. “Help her,” she ordered one of the other women. She herself washed Brun, while the others cleaned the room.

By afternoon, Brun was back in her own room, lying exhausted on her bed, with a baby on either side. She felt nothing for them. They were no more her babies than . . . than any stranger’s baby. Less. They had been forced on her; strangers had made use of her body to produce them.

Two babies. Brun slid into darkness on that thought.

“No breeding for half a year,” the warden told her the next day. “You feed your babies; you help with work here one month, then you go to the nursery. Nursery for five months—maybe with twins, six months. Then to breeding house.”

Half a year . . . she had half a year to get strong, to escape, to find a way to contact someone who would let her father know where she was.

But in the days after the birth, Brun began to despair again. How could she help Hazel if she couldn’t find her? How could she find her when she couldn’t ask questions? She lay motionless unless the warden prodded her to get up . . . she fed the babies only when ordered, ate only when ordered. Feeding the babies hurt; she had not imagined that babies would suck harder than her lovers had. But she was too weak, too miserable, to do more than hiss in pain each time someone put them to her breasts. She didn’t notice when someone took the babies away, bringing them to her only for nursing. Someone had to put them to her breasts; someone had to clean them—and her—when they soiled her.

Then one day a cooler wind blew through the doors and windows, carrying with it a scent of harvest fields. And something—something familiar. Brun shifted in her chair; the babies shifted. One of them lost its hold on her nipple, and whimpered. Without noticing, she moved it back. Something—what was it? She dozed again, but woke at the next cool gust. Oak leaves, stubble fields. Hunting, if she were home. All at once the full memory hit her: Opening Day, with all three hunts gathered before the big house, the clop of the horses’ feet, the panting and whining of hounds, the clink of glasses, the voices . . . but even in imagination, she saw herself silent, unable to reply to the greetings. She saw the faces of friends staring at her, shocked, disapproving . . . and she was standing barefoot on the sharp gravel, all the others on tall horses, hard-hooved horses stamping near her bare feet . . .

She would never be home. Her thoughts slid down the same spiral of depression . . . but this time stopped short of darkness. No. She was young, she had a long life to live. Lady Cecelia had survived without a voice, and she had been blind and paralyzed as well. Help had finally come; she, Brun, had been part of that help. Somewhere, people were trying to plan help for her. She had to trust that, believe that her family and friends would not leave her here forever, alone. She had survived so far; she had borne twins with no medical care worth mentioning, and lived . . . she would live to hunt again. She would ride; she would speak, and those who had silenced her would listen. Her head came up.

“This is good,” the warden said, coming out to pat her on the shoulder. “Many mothers feel sad after babies, especially twins. But now you’re better. Now you will be all right.”

She was not all right, but she could be . . . perhaps. Brun fought the darkness back, made herself begin to live again. The next day, she reached out for the babies as they were brought to her. She didn’t even know what they were . . . not only whose, who was the father, but whether they were boys or girls. She looked. Boys. Both boys . . . one with pale orange hair, one with darker, thinner hair. She could see nothing of herself in either one, and she knew that one of the men had had red hair and a shaggy red beard.

She still felt nothing for them, not even the mild flicker of interest she used to feel for other women’s babies. She had thought babies amusing at times, when they were older than this and had learned to smile. She had felt the odd pang of tenderness . . . but not now. These were just . . . little animals who had lived in her flesh, and now fed at her expense. At least the nursing was less painful—even a relief, when her breasts were swollen with milk.

She watched the other women with their babies. Muted though they were, they clearly loved the babies, cuddling them, stroking them, laughing soundlessly when one of the infants did something amusing. They spoke to them in hissing whispers and little clicks whenever the warden was far enough away. They peered at each other’s babies, smiling and nodding over them—and the same with her twins. She could not reciprocate.

Now that she could force herself to her feet again, she was expected to help with the work. But she had never cared for an infant, let alone in these primitive circumstances. The wrapping of diapers baffled her completely.

“It’s as if she never did anything until now—can you believe a grown woman not knowing how to peel vegetables? To put a child to breast?” The warden complained to the other women, who nodded and hissed in response.

Brun seethed. She could have told them why she didn’t have their backwards, primitive skills. She had not been trained to make beds and clean toilets and chop vegetables and wipe the bottoms of dirty little brats. She held pilots’ licenses on half a dozen worlds; she could ride to hounds with the Greens; she could take down and reassemble the scan systems of a medium cruiser as fast as any technicians . . .

And here her skills were worth nothing. They thought she was stupid or crazy, because she couldn’t do what they did so easily.

“She’s an abomination. Of course the heathen don’t teach their daughters properly.” That was the warden’s explanation for everything she did wrong.

She was not a heathen, nor an abomination, but surrounded by those who thought she was, she found it harder and harder to remember her real self. It was easier to scrub the floor the way the warden insisted on, even if it would have been more efficient the other way. Easier to change the babies the way she was told, to cut vegetables the way she was told.

If only she had been really stupid . . . but her intelligence, recovering from the birth, awoke again. Recipes were boring, perhaps, but she remembered them just the same, automatically assigning them to categories. Sewing was even more boring than recipes, poking a needle in and out of cloth over and over. Why did they have to do everything the hard way? Not everything, she reminded herself . . . just the work assigned to women. Electricity for light, running water . . . but only men had access to computers and all that computers stood for.

Scraps of history she had hardly listened to in class floated up from a retentive memory. There had been other societies which resisted making life easier for women, because then they might turn away from the traditional role of wife and mother. Way back on Old Earth, cultures which didn’t let women drive groundcars or fly or learn to use weapons—others which forbade women to teach in mixed classes, to become doctors. But that was long ago and very far away . . . and this was here and now.

In the quick glimpse she caught of the street when she and the babies were transferred to the nursery, she could not distinguish any landmarks. It was a chill, raw day; she shivered in the wind that whipped down the street. She was put in the back of the same kind of closed groundcar, where she could see nothing of her route, and driven some incalculable distance with four definite turns.

The front of the nursery looked slightly more welcoming, with shuttered windows instead of blank stone overlooking the street. A distant roar—Brun looked up to see the obvious plume of a shuttle launch in the distance.

“Eyes down!” said the driver, slapping at her head. But she exulted . . . she knew now where the spaceport was, or at least what direction.

Inside, the matron greeted her less harshly than the warden at the maternity house, and she could hear women’s voices in the distance. Women’s voices? The matron led her to a room large enough for a bed, two cribs, and a low wide chair with a leg rest that was obviously intended for nursing. She had a small closet, a chest, and the inevitable sewing basket was on a bedside table.

The matron helped her settle the babies in their cribs, helped her make the bed, and then led Brun off to show her the house. In the upstairs rooms, the more privileged women could look out through slatted shutters to the streets below—but Brun had only a glimpse before the matron pulled her away. An upstairs sewing room had rear-facing windows that looked out on a long, walled garden full of fruit trees; a few apples hung from some of them. Beyond the wall—Brun tried not to stare, told herself she would have time to look later—beyond the wall she could see a street, and the buildings across it . . . and beyond more buildings, open land, rough fields and distant hills.

The women in the nursery had slightly more freedom. They were supposedly regaining their strength for another pregnancy; they were encouraged to walk out in the orchard, as well as do the housework and cooking. Not all the women were muted, either. They had come, Brun learned, from other maternity homes or from private homes . . . servant women whose children would be reared elsewhere when they returned to their duties. The women who supervised them inspected the babies and mothers daily for cleanliness and any sign of illness, and supervised the preparation of household chores and cooking, but otherwise treated their charges with pleasant firmness. The muted women had perhaps less pleasantness and more firmness, but no active unkindness.

They continued to teach Brun the skills they thought all women should have. Brun had not known that such things were possible, but she watched the other women produce socks and gloves and mittens from several wooden sticks and balls of fuzzy yarn. She was handed a pair of sticks, and shown—over and over—how to cast on, how to knit a plain stitch. It was the most boring thing she’d ever done, the same little movement of the hand over and over and over, even worse than sewing seams. Then they handed her another stick, and taught her to knit a tube. Something clicked in her mind—this sort of thing, done with finer yarn and on a machine, made some of the things she’d worn. Sweaters, for instance: three tubes sewn together. Stockings . . . leggings . . . tubular knits. It was interesting in an intellectual way, one of the few things that was.

It got colder, and Brun shivered. The other women, warm in their knitted shawls and sweaters, shook their heads at her.

“You must work faster,” one of them told her. “You will be cold if you have no winter clothes.” In winter, they explained, they wore long knitted stockings under their skirts, held up with a peculiar arrangement of straps and buttons. The stockinged feet did not break the rules against shoes, because they were not hard-bottomed. In households, some women even wore backless clogs in wet or snowy weather, if they needed to go to market, but here they would not.

Here also Brun was formally introduced to the beliefs of her captors. They assumed that outlanders had no morals, and no beliefs worth mentioning. So they began with the basics, as Brun assumed children were taught. God, a supernatural being who had created the universe. Man, the glory of creation. Woman, created to be Man’s comfort and help. Evil powers, rebellious against God, who tempted Woman to usurp Man’s position.

For once muteness had its utility; Brun could not be made to recite the Rules and Rituals, as the other women did. And since women did not “discourse”—a word which they interpreted to mean speaking or writing about Godly matters—she was not asked to write answers to the questions asked ritually of others. Women were not encouraged to read or write anyway—although recipes and compendia of other household knowledge were permissable. But they clearly feared contamination by anything a heathen abomination such as a Registered Embryo might commit to paper, or do to a book she read from. She was not allowed to read or write anything at all. They could not test her memory, or her understanding.

But she had an excellent memory. She could not hear the same words over and over without storing them away. The words of the prophets . . . the word of God Almighty. The rules and their corollaries . . . quite reasonable, if you accepted the premises, which Brun did not. If in fact you believed that women had been created as men’s servants and comfort, then . . . anything women did which was not serving men would clearly be wrong. And this was not something women could determine. Only God could make the rules, and only men could interpret them.

It all made sense, except that it was ridiculous, like the ridiculous logic of paranoia. The notion that she was not as much a person as, say, her brothers . . . or, to go one step away, that Esmay Suiza was less a person than Barin Serrano . . . was absurd. She knew that. She knew how to demonstrate that, if only she could have explained; she was sure that every woman in the nursery would understand, if only . . .

But she was mute, all her knowledge and intelligence locked away. In her world, in the world she knew, the individual’s voice was honored; parents and teachers and therapists like those who had worked with Lady Cecelia tried to ensure that each person had every opportunity to communicate. She remembered Cecelia’s struggles, and the many who had helped her. Here, no one thought an abomination had anything useful to say. As long as she could understand and obey, that was enough.

She ached, burned, to free this world’s women . . . to show them that they were as human as men. In her mind, in the dark hours, she made all the speeches, wrote all the lectures, proved over and over and over again to an audience of shadows what she could never say.

In the daytime, Brun forced herself to walk on the gritty paths, toughening her feet as well as her legs, whenever exercise was permitted. She walked in all weathers, even when frost and snow numbed her to the knees before she was halfway to the first trees. The twins weighed her down—but she thought of them like the heavy packs in training. Additional strength would come from lugging them around . . . she would be stronger sooner, and more able to escape. Twice a day she walked the length of the orchard and back . . . soon she could walk farther, in the lengthening days that must mean a warmer season was coming. She even welcomed the hard work of mopping and cleaning, as she felt herself growing stronger. In the evenings, in her room, she attempted the exercises that had once come so easily. At first she worried that they would notice, and forbid them, but no one commented. Other women too, she discovered, did exercises to tighten their slack bellies, to recover flexibility.

In the darkest times, she practiced the swift movements of unarmed combat . . . only two or three strokes each time, in case of observation, but a little every day. She matched hands and feet against each other, the quietest way she could think to achieve the hardening she needed for a killing stroke.

The showings, where proven breeders were displayed for men who might choose them next time, were less humiliation than she’d expected, and more worrying. In the showings, she did her best to look exhausted, weak, helpless, broken. It wasn’t hard to look tired . . . she pushed herself to shaky exhaustion every day. But she could feel the muscle building on her legs again, in her arms, in her abdomen. Would they believe that came from carrying the babies? From walking in the orchard? From the simple exercises the others did?

But they could not expect what she intended to do with the muscles she built with such effort. Eyes squeezed shut, she reminded herself which basic moves would build the strength and speed she needed for killing.

The other women did not so much avoid her as ignore her. When the babies were wriggling happily on quilts on the floor, they exclaimed over the strength and vigor of her boys as they did over the qualities of their own. The staff gave her directions—which chores to do—in much the same tone as anyone else. The speaking women naturally talked most to each other; the muted women had a private language of gesture, and a public one of broader gestures and elaborate lipspeaking and hisses. The speaking women would include the mutes if one of the muted women made the effort to get their attention. Some even befriended one—for cooperative baby care made friendships useful for both. But Brun could not enter into the lipspeaking of the other muted women. Occasionally, if she were alone with another woman, and faced her directly, she could make herself understood with a combination of gesture and mouthing—if the topic was something obvious. Where is the sewing basket? or What is that? They were willing to show her where things were, or how to do a chore. But she had no topics in common with them, except babies, and she did not care that much about the babies, any of them. They were all—hers and the others’—proof of what she hated. And she knew they saw her as a dangerous person . . . tamed by muting, but potentially a source of soul-killing deviancy. Her lack of interest in the babies was another proof, to them, of her unnatural, immoral upbringing.

The babies were moving from creeping to rocking on their hands and knees when a new mother arrived at the nursery. She was very young, and had a slightly dazed expression. The other women spoke to her in short, simple sentences, a little louder than usual. Brun wondered if she’d been drugged, though she had seen no evidence that women were given drugs. On the third day, she approached Brun. “You’re the yellow-hair from the stars?” She had the usual soft voice, but a little hesitancy in it.

Brun nodded. Up close, she decided that it wasn’t drugs, but some innate problem, that gave the girl that odd expression and halting speech . . . and the social unawareness that let her approach the unapproachable.

“You traveled with another girl—more my size—and two brats?”

Brun nodded again.

“She said you was nice. She liked you. She said.”

Brun looked hard at the girl. She had to be talking about Hazel. Where had she seen Hazel?

“She’s doin’ fine. I just thought you’d like to know.” The girl smiled past Brun’s shoulder, and wandered off, leaving Brun tethered to the twins.

Hazel was all right. A surge of relief swept through her. When that girl had left wherever Hazel was, to go to maternity—or was Hazel in maternity? Brun shook her head; she could not keep track of time. It was hot, or it was cold, daylight or dark; that was all she knew. But Hazel was all right, less time ago than Brun knew for sure. If only she knew where.

Several days passed before the girl sat down beside her again to nurse her baby.

“They call her Patience now,” the girl said. “It’s a good name for her ’cause she never makes trouble. She’s real quiet and works hard. Prima says they’ll be able to marry her as a third wife for sure, maybe even a second, even though she can’t sew good. They been trainin’ her for market girl, and she goes there by herself now.” A wistful note in that soft voice—had this girl wanted to go to market? By now Brun was sure the girl was retarded; no one would let her go out alone for other reasons than the restrictions on women. “But she doesn’t have your yellow hair,” the girl said, staring at it with frank admiration. “And she won’t talk about the stars, ’cause Prima said not to.”

Brun could have strangled her, for having a voice and not saying what Brun really needed to know. She picked up a twin and removed from his mouth the pebble he’d put there. She could not feel any affection for them, but she wasn’t about to let a child—any child—choke to death.

“She don’t look big enough to have babies, though,” the girl said, petting her own child. “And her blood’s not regular yet. The master says—”

“Hush, you!” One of the women in charge came by and tapped the girl on the head. “You’re not here to gossip about what your master says. You want your tongue pulled?”

The girl’s mouth snapped shut, and she clambered out of the chair, holding her baby to her.

The woman shook her head at Brun. “She’s simple, she is. Can’t remember from day to day what the rules are, poor thing. We have to keep an eye on her, so’s she doesn’t get herself in trouble. If she gets in the habit of talking about her master here, even to you, she might do it back at her house and then they’d have to punish her. Best nip it in the bud.” She patted Brun’s head, almost affectionately. “That is pretty hair, though. Might win you a chance at wifing, when you’ve borne your three. Just you give me a nod, if the girl starts talking about men’s doings again, like a good girl, eh?” Brun nodded. As long as they’d let the girl talk to her.

The girl avoided Brun for days. But late one evening, she slipped into Brun’s room.

“She don’t scare me,” she said, clearly untruthfully. “I’m from Ranger Bowie’s house; he’s the only one can mute me. They can’t. And he wouldn’t, long as I don’t argue or nothing. Telling you about Patience isn’t arguing. It’s explaining. Explaining is fine as long as it’s not men.”

Brun smiled, a smile that seemed to crack her face. How long had it been since she last smiled?

“I wish they hadn’t muted you,” the girl said. “I’d sure like to know what it’s like out there . . . Patience, she won’t tell me about it.” She stopped, listening, then crept closer. “I wisht I had your hair,” she said, and put out a hand to stroke it. Then she turned and vanished into the dark corridor.

Brun traced what she’d heard on the wall, fixing it in her mind, as she once would have repeated it aloud. Ranger Bowie. What an odd name. She didn’t remember the men using any name like that on the ship . . . had they even called each other by name?

The nondescript man in the checked shirt bellied up to the bar and ordered. Beside him, two men were talking about the Captain’s choice of policy.

“Well, we’re free men but I don’t see any call to stomp in an ant bed. It’s my right, but I’m not stupid enough—”

“You’re calling the Captain stupid?”

“I’m saying that taking outlander women for our own needs is one thing, but taking that one—and then bragging about it—is just asking for trouble.”

“It proves we’re strong.” That speaker turned to the man in the checked shirt. “And what’s your opinion, brother?”

He smiled. “I heard she had yellow hair.”

The first speaker snorted. “Everbody knows that. They’re hoping she’ll put her hair on her babes.”

Someone down the bar leaned forward. “You talkin’ about that gal from space? The yellow-haired slut? She had twins, did you hear? One redhead, one dark. Odds on, they’re double-fathered.”

“No!” The man in the checked shirt widened his eyes, the perfect picture of a country bumpkin in for one of the festivals.

“I’d bet on it. She won’t be out for another two months, though. They say the twins need her milk longer, being smaller.”

“Ah. I’d hoped.”

The other men looked at each other, sly grins twitching their mouths. This one probably had only one wife, and her homely as a tree.

“Well, who wouldn’t? Don’t get that many blondes, do we? Put your name on the list, is all I can say. They’re showing her now, if you want to see if it’s worth the tax.”

“Before I put down on the list, believe I will.”

“Crockett Street Nursery, then.”

He was not the only one who wanted to see the outworlder blonde mute, who had birthed twins. They’d been confirmed fraternal and double-fathered, which meant she might throw twins again. A woman who could drop two eggs at a time was even more desirable. He took his number, and when it was called pushed into the room with the others in that group.

At first he wasn’t sure. He had been shown pictures—moving and still—of Brun in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Closeups, distance shots, everything. He had thought nothing could disguise her. But the yellow-haired woman before him was not the same Brun—if it was Brun at all. Her slender strength was reshaped now—her body blurred and broadened with the children she’d carried, her breasts heavy with milk. She stood heavily, arms hanging by her sides. Her yellow hair was long, lank, nothing like the lively tousled curls in the pictures. Her blue eyes were duller, almost gray. But his practiced eye noted what was not concealed . . . the bone structure of her face, her shoulders, the exact shape of her fingers and toes. This had to be the woman he sought. He looked for the RE tattoo, but the short wrap such women were allowed during a showing covered the area where it might have been.

Two guards stood with her, their staves held to prevent the men from touching her.

“Devil’s own,” one of the men near him muttered.

“Satan’s snare,” said another. “Good thing they muted her.”

“Yup. But the babies look strong.” The babies were on display as well, naked cherubs in a playpen. They grinned toothlessly at the watching men.

“Not worth it to me,” said a black-haired man, and spat on the floor. “I’m not risking my soul for that.” He pushed past the others and walked out.

Another laughed. “There speaks a man without the tax. She was just as wicked afore he looked at her.”

“And it’s our duty to convert the heathen,” said another. “I reckon another couple of birthings’ll convert her.”

“What—you’ll bid for her wifing?”

“Might do. Might do worse.”

“Might do better . . .” They chatted on. Brun stared past them. Why didn’t she lower her gaze, he wondered, the way the other women did. Then he knew why . . . she was neither virgin nor wife, and the worst had happened already. What could they do to her now? He shivered, and the man next to him glanced over.

“What is it, brother?”

“Nothing.”

Hazel’s duties as a servant required her to go into the street each day with the garbage. When she had demonstrated that she would perform this task exactly as directed, looking neither to right nor left, even when unaccompanied, Prima decided to try her out as a market girl. She was still clumsy in her sewing; she would be more marketable for other skills. As near as she could tell, from what she dared let the girl tell her about the abominable behavior of those outworld heathens, the girl had been among merchants and traders all her life.

So, first in the company of Mellowtongue, Hazel went to the market to carry home those items which the garden did not produce. She was required to look at the ground two paces before her, and carry the basket at waist height, and speak to no one, not even if spoken to. Mellowtongue answered those inquiries which must be answered. Hazel performed exactly as ordered, on that and all the trips that followed.

The first time she was sent out alone, for just one item, she was watched, from a distance, by one of the other servant women, one too senior to be a market girl, but reliable in her gossip. She went directly to the correct stall, waited with head down until the stallkeeper called her house name, and held out the basket and payment without looking up. She was sent again, and then again, and then—in company with the head cook—learned to haggle respectfully with the stallkeepers.

She took nothing on herself; she pilfered no treats; she was submissive even to the unfair scolding of the cook on the matter of some wilted greens.

So, in a few months, she was sent regularly to market on market days. And there, by keeping her ears stretched to the fullest, she heard gossip about the yellow-haired outlander, the heathen woman who was in the maternity house . . . and then had birthed twins . . . and then nearly died of the birth sadness . . . and then moved to the nursery. Days later she heard which nursery. Days after that, one detail after another trickled into street talk. She said nothing; she asked no questions, and told no tales. When market girls from other houses tried to make friends, with quick murmurs, she ignored them.

She kept her eye on Brandy—now Prudence—and Stassi—now Serenity. Day by day, the little girls seemed to forget their former life. Quick, bouncy, darting Brandy was still more active—but she had transferred her passion for blocks and construction toys to sewing and weaving. Already she had made a stuffed doll for Stassi, and then a dress to put on it. She seemed to grasp easily the way that cloth could be shaped to fit bodies. She was fascinated by the movement of the great looms in the weaving shed, and had explained to Hazel (who could not figure out how they worked) how the rise and fall of rows of little rings would produce different patterns in the cloth. Both girls had friends their own age, and seemed far more attached to the women who cared for them than to Hazel.

Reluctantly, Hazel gave up the idea of including the littles in an escape. They were too small; they could not run and climb and fight. They would be obvious—no way to conceal the fact that they were children, and they had had no training in the boys’ world, so they could not pass as boys. Most of all—she could see that they were happy and secure, and that the women of the household liked them. Even Prima, inclined to be stiff with the other women’s children, had smiled at Brandy-Prudence, and stroked her dark curls. If she could get away—if she could get Brun away—the littles would not suffer for it. No one here blamed children for things like that. They would be cared for better than she could care for them—better, she suspected, than the Distressed Spacers’ Home would care for them if she did get them back to Familias space safely. And . . . they were happy. They had lost one family, one world—she could not tear them away from another.

So she waited her chance. She could live here the rest of her life . . . she had the knack of fitting in, she always had . . . but she didn’t want to. She had to admit she liked the food, the beautiful garden, the sense of security, the luxury of what seemed infinite space in which to move—she had never realized just how much space a person on a planet might have available, how big “outdoors” actually was. But she remembered too well the comfort of her old clothes, the freedom of movement, the friendships not bound by gender or race or beliefs. Here she would always be an outsider; she wanted to feel part of a family again. She missed the technology, the sense she’d had, in Elias Madero, of being part of a greater civilization spread across the universe.

Besides, there was the blonde lady. They had exchanged names. On the whole world, only she knew who Hazel really was, where she was from—and on the whole world, only she knew that the blonde lady’s name was Brun. She, Hazel, could survive here, but that lady had no chance.

Brun. She rehearsed the name, keeping it alive. Even at the time, even frightened as she had been, and determined to protect the littles, she had felt a stubborn flare of rage at what the men had done to the other woman. Muting Brun had been wrong, even more wrong than muting a woman brought up in their world. Nothing anyone did—nothing, not ever—deserved that punishment. And Brun had done nothing, any more than Hazel had. They had been wrong; they had stolen her, and then they had stolen her voice.

Hazel knew Brun would want to escape. Any woman would, who had lived in freedom. And Brun . . . even at the worst, Hazel sensed a burning determination to do more than survive. But voiceless, locked up as she was, with twin babies, she could not possibly do it alone. Hazel would have to figure out a way. It wasn’t going to be easy, not with babies . . .

To herself, in the night, she rehearsed—but only in her head, never aloud—the things she knew to be really true. She was Hazel Takeris; her father had been Rodrick Takeris, on the engineering staff of the Elias Madero, commanded by Captain Lund. She had passed her G-levels and qualified for junior apprentice in a competitive exam; her pay scale had been upgraded once on the voyage.

Brandy and Stassi had been Ghirian and Vorda’s daughters, but Ghirian and Vorda were dead. The blonde woman was Brun, and her father was named something like “rabbit.” Out there among the stars was a universe where girls could wear whatever they chose, look men in the eye, choose their own careers and partners. Someday . . . someday she would find it again.